Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Epic Rome and Juliet Project: Update 10

We filmed for about 4.5 hours today and it was not without drama. (Pun very much intended)

We were filming the end of the play where (SPOILER ALERT!) Romeo kills Paris, kills himself and Juliet kills herself. It's a very serious scene that needs most of the characters to be present.

We were supposed to start filming at 1, but didn't get going to almost 1:45 because we were missing a camera, cameraman and a few actors. The cameraman never showed and the camera was dropped off by a dad of a sick student. We had students show up to help and they were drafted into acting roles.

We were still missing the Friar. We need him for the entire third scene. The Friar, who happens to be a third cousin on mine, had not arrived and that was not like him. Then I received this text with a picture.

"Eric's Broken Arm"

You have to be kidding me! The third most important character in the third scene was out with a broken arm. The directors and I had to sit down and re-write the script. The friar was removed from the entire scene and the lines of other actors needed to be changed so they would not address the friar. We cut about 3-4 pages from the script. The kids rolled with the changes as best as they could.

We were able to use the school's auditorium for the end scene and the death scenes turned out pretty well. The kids were a bit rambunctious at times, but we got some great shots. The directors and the cameraman did an amazing job. I'm very proud of my Romeo and Juliet. They did an amazing job playing dead. The rest of the cast and crew came together and did an awesome job.

We need to re-shoot Act 3 Scene 1 on Monday after school and a small portion of Act 3 Scene 2 on Wednesday in class.

We are almost there and I can't wait to see what Van Meter has to share.

The next update will hopefully be the last about filming and I can start to focus on the editing and the music.